The Daily Show correspondent talks about personal grooming, the perils of stand-up, and his new gig hosting AfroPop, a public television documentary series loosely centered on the African diaspora.

by Maria Fontoura

AfroPop documentaries cover a breadth of topics from the turbulent history of funk-rock band Fishbone to a portrait of a young Malian man endeavoring to bring electricity to the impoverished villages of his country. Seems like pretty serious work for a comedian.
The main goal of the series is to take these independent documentaries and get them out to a wider audience, because they’re all interesting stories that should have more eyeballs on them. They reached out to me I’m assuming because of my work on The Daily Show, and because I did this independent film called Medicine for Melancholy. So, having worked in that world and doing field pieces on The Daily Show, which have a bit of a documentary element to them, I think they saw me as a bridge between those two worlds. The three people who recognize my name, who I’m assuming are aunts of mine, will definitely watch because of it.

The documentary about the 26-year-old making solar panels in Mali made us feel like we should be doing more with our lives.
Yeah, don’t ever put your life up against what’s going on in a documentary, because the documentary is generally going to win. They very rarely make documentaries about people who are just hangin’ out, catchin’ up on stuff on their DVR.

You’re working a serious beard in the series intros.
What happens with my facial hair is about varying degrees of apathy. As somebody who’s on television, I should probably take more pride in my appearance. But it’s usually just like, “Eh, I’m not gonna shave.” Then another week goes by and I’m like, “Eh, whatever.” Then it’s growing into my mouth, and I’m like, “Well, I’ll just sorta pull it apart and put little barrettes on it. And then I’m gonna eat my food.” Then at some point I’ll catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and my beard is the same width of my face, and I’m like, “OK, you should probably trim this down. You look like some sort of wolf hobo.” They don’t really have hair and make up people in public television, you know. It’s more just like, “Get old hobo wolf there and clean him up a little bit. Get him off the train car. He’s howling at a train and — where’d the bindle come from? Just get him inside. Wash him down, get the fleas off him, just trim him up. Make him look kind of respectable. He’s gonna be introducing a documentary series for goodness sakes.”

Your first hour-long special, Wyatt Cenac: Comedy Person, aired last year. When can we expect another?
I don’t have a timetable, but I’d like to do another one. I’m trying to write new stuff and put something together.

Are you at the point now where you can show up at a comedy club and bump some poor guy from the stage?
I would feel bad doing that, because I remember people doing it when I was coming up in LA, at the Improv. You’d see somebody roll in and just want to jump on. I understand the urge, but there’s just something about it. But who knows, down the road I could turn into a total asshole and say, “Fuck it. Any stage, I’m taking it. Don’t care. Don’t have anything prepared. I’m just gonna stand here and slowly drink a cocktail, and you just have to take it. Give me a courtesy laugh because I’m on television.”

You’ve won two Emmys for writing on The Daily Show. Do you display them proudly?
Not really. For the longest time they were on the floor, because there is something a little weird about keeping your trophies out as an adult. So then I got a bookshelf for my office space and sat them there. But I still try to hide them with crap. Because the other part of it, too, is that people come by and they want to pick them up, and they’re heavy and sharp and pointy.

This being Men’s Journal, we have to ask if you’re into any adventure travel or outdoor sports?
Do I go outside? Yeah, if I do anything, I’ll occasionally ride a bicycle outside. But I don’t take it up and down trails or anything like that. I grew up in Texas. So for me a bike was the thing you rode as a kid to get to the comic book shop or the 7-Eleven to buy a chilled cola and play Galaga or something.

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